Working Journalists-Regulation of Conditions of Service- Constitutional validity of enactment--Decision of Wage Board fixing rates of wages-Validity-Working Journalists (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955 (45 of 1955), ss. 3(2). 4. 5(1)(a)(iii), 9(1), 11, 12, 17, 20(d) (2)-Constitution of India, Arts. 19(1) (a), 19(1)(g), 14, 32.

These petitions on behalf of certain newspaper establishments challenged the constitutional validity of the Working Journalists (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955, and the legality of the decision of the Wage Board, constituted thereunder, purporting to act under s. 9 of the Act. The impugned Act, which was passed in order to implement the recommendations of the Press Commission and had for its object the regulation of the conditions of service of working journalists and other persons employed in newspaper establishments, provided, inter alia, for the payment of gratuity to a working journalist who had been in continuous service, whether before or after the commencement of the Act, for not less than three years, even when he voluntarily resigned from service, regulated hours of work and leave, provided for the payment of retrenchment compensation with retrospective effect in certain cases and by s. 9(1) laid down the principles that the Wage Board was to follow in fixing the rates of wages of working journalists. Under those principles the Wage Board was to have regard to the cost of living the prevalent rates of wages for comparable employments, the circumstances relating to the newspaper industry in different regions of the country and to any other circumstances which it might consider relevant. The petitioners contended on various grounds that the provisions of the impugned Act violated their fundamental rights under Arts, 19(1)(a), 19(1)(g), 14 and 32 of the Constitution and that the decision of the Wage Board fixing the rates and scales of wages. which was arrived at without any consideration whatsoever as to the capacity of the newspaper industry to pay the same, imposed too heavy a financial burden on the industry and spelled its total ruin, was vitiated by a wrong approach and non-application of the proper criteria and transgressed the principles of natural justice and was, therefore, illegal and void.